An Appetite for Murder Read Online Free

had broken in but had made a poor job of it. Myself, I think it could just as well have been a burglar, who had stolen the keys to the office and the safe, and had them copied.’
    ‘What was in the safe?’
    ‘Three hundred pounds and more,’ replied Sweetman. ‘It was never found. Even now I worry that there are people watching me, thinking I have it hidden somewhere and am about to retrieve it.’ He glanced about, nervously, as if afraid that there were watchers lurking in the shadowed corners of Frances’ parlour. ‘I never took that money, Miss Doughty,’ he pleaded earnestly, ‘and even if I was to find it by some chance, I could not keep it because it is not mine.’
    ‘How do you think Mr Gibson’s pocket book came to be in your house?’ asked Frances.
    ‘He had called on me a few days before the robbery and might have dropped it by accident, but of course he could not remember having missed it,’ said Sweetman. He paused. ‘Mr Gibson was not known as a gentleman who opened his pocket book very frequently.’
    ‘Where was it found?’
    ‘In a drawer. I always thought the maid had picked it up and put it away thinking it was mine, but she denied it.’
    ‘And now, as you say in your letter, you would like to be reunited with your family? What was the last occasion on which you saw them?’
    He gave a deep shuddering sigh. ‘Oh, Miss Doughty, I never saw or spoke to them after my arrest! That was only a week after the robbery.’
    ‘Your wife did not visit you in the police cells or in prison?’ Frances asked, in some surprise. ‘She did not appear in court? You had no message from her?’
    He shook his head miserably. ‘All I received very shortly after I was arrested was a note from her solicitor saying that she was terribly distressed by what I had done and wanted nothing more to do with me. I wrote, begging to see her, to be allowed at least to see the children, but received no reply.’
    ‘Why do you think she believed you to be guilty?’ questioned Frances. ‘Many a man who has committed far worse crimes is forgiven by his wife and allowed to see his family.’
    ‘I wish I could say,’ he murmured pathetically. ‘How could she have known me so little? Perhaps it was because the police thought that I had committed the crime; maybe to her mind that settled the matter. And I am afraid, very afraid, that she has convinced my children of the same.’
    ‘Did you learn anything of her circumstances after your arrest?’
    ‘No. Nothing at all.’ There was a damp glimmer in his eyes.
    He looked so desperately unhappy that Frances almost sent for tea. She glanced at Sarah, who was watching their visitor carefully. If Sarah had suspected Sweetman of being a clever liar it would have shown in her face, but there was no trace of suspicion there. Could they accept his story after all?
    ‘Who was your solicitor?’ asked Frances.
    ‘Mr Manley. I think he is dead now.’
    ‘Yes, his junior Mr Rawsthorne took over the practice.’ Frances reflected that a great deal of the information she needed to help Mr Sweetman might well have gone into the grave during the intervening years. Rawsthorne, however, was her own family solicitor and a friend, and might be willing to offer some insights, or even have retained some documentation relating to the case. ‘Tell me about your family,’ she asked.
    ‘Susan is fifty years of age – three years younger than I,’ said Sweetman, his voice gentle with fond memories, ‘and she has not sought a legal separation from me, or I would surely have known of it. She was once Susan Porter, and her father was a clerk. We were married in October 1851, and there are two children: Benjamin, our eldest, will be twenty-eight now, and Mary twenty-six. I miss them so much – I –’ he was suddenly so overcome with emotion it choked in his throat, and he was briefly unable to speak. Frances offered him a glass of water, which he took, gratefully. ‘I am sorry, but this